Lead-zinc recovery

Example 10.1 Lead-zinc recovery Lead and zinc minerals often occur together and are selectively floated and recovered. The main lead mineral is galena (PbS). 

Flotation or froth flotation is a physicochemical property-based separation process. It is widely utilised in the area of mineral processing also known as ore dressing and mineral beneftciation for mineral concentration. In addition to the mining and metallurgical industries, flotation also finds appHcations in sewage treatment, water purification, bitumen recovery from tar sands, and coal desulfurization. Nearly one biUion tons of ore are treated by this process aimuaHy in the world. Phosphate rock, precious metals, lead, zinc, copper, molybdenum, and tin-containing ores as well as coal are treated routinely by this process some flotation plants treat 200,000 tons of ore per day (see Mineral recovery and processing). Various aspects of flotation theory and practice have been treated in books and reviews (1 9). 

In the recovery of cadmium from fumes evolved in the Imperial Smelting process for the treatment of lead—zinc concentrates, cadmium is separated from arsenic using a cation-exchange resin such as Zeocarb 225 or Ambedite 120 (14,15). Cadmium is absorbed on the resin and eluted with a brine solution. The cadmium may then be recovered direcdy by galvanic precipitation. 

In the case of a copper-zinc and copper-lead-zinc ore, gold collects in the copper concentrate. During the treatment of lead-zinc ores, the gold tends to report to the lead concentrate. Information regarding gold recovery from base metal ores is sparse. 

Gold recovery from copper-zinc ores is usually higher than that obtained from either a lead-zinc or copper lead-zinc ore. This is attributed to two main factors when selecting a reagent... 

Figure 17.6 Effect of ZnS04 additions on gold recovery from lead-zinc ores.

Cadmium is obtained as a byproduct in zinc recovery processes. The metal volatdizes during roasting of zinc concentrates and collected as dust or fume in bag houses or electrostatic precipitators. The dusts are mixed with coal (or coke) and zinc chloride and calcined. The cadmium chloride formed volatihzes upon calcination and thus separates out from zinc. The chloride then is treated with sulfuric acid in the presence of an oxidizing agent. This converts lead, present as impurity in cadmium ore, to lead sulfate which precipitates out. Cadmium is finally separated from copper by the addition of zinc dust and... 

Indium may be recovered from zinc ores by several patented processes. Usually it is recovered from residues obtained from zinc extraction. The residues, slags, fume, or dusts from zinc smelting or lead-zinc smelting are treated with a mineral acid. Other steps involved in recovery often vary, but mostly use solvent extraction and precipitation steps. In some processes, treatment with caustic soda yields indium hydroxide. The hydroxide is calcined to obtain oxide, which then is reduced with hydrogen at elevated temperatures to obtain the metal. Distillation or electrolysis are the final steps to... 

The Lewis ENVIRO-CLEAN process removes and recovers metals such as chromium, copper, nickel, mercury, lead, zinc, iron, and cadmium and has effectively demonstrated that it can treat a matrix of multiple metals in a single stream with positive results. The process treats wastes from wood preserving, metal finishing, mining, surface and groundwaters. The two-step process uses granular-activated carbon and electrolytic metal recovery to yield a salable metallic by-product. 

Cadmium occurs primarily as sulfide minerals in zinc, lead—zinc, and copper—lead—zinc ores. Beneficiation of these minerals, usually by flotation (qv) or heavy-media separation, yields concentrates which are then processed for the recovery of the contained metal values. Cadmium follows the zinc with which it is so closely associated (see Zinc and zinc alloys see also Copper Lead). 

The raw minerals mined from natural deposits comprise mixtures of different specific minerals. An early step in mineral processing is to use crushing and grinding to free these various minerals from each other. In addition, these same processes may be used to reduce the mineral particle sizes to make them suitable for a subsequent separation process. Non-ferrous metals such as copper, lead, zinc, nickel, cobalt, molybdenum, mercury, and antimony are typically produced from mineral ores containing these metals as sulfides (and sometimes as oxides, carbonates, or sulfates) [91,619,620], The respective metal sulfides are usually separated from the raw ores by flotation. Flotation processes are also used to concentrate non-metallic minerals used in other industries, such as calcium fluoride, barium sulfate, sodium and potassium chlorides, sulfur, coal, phosphates, alumina, silicates, and clays [91,619,621], Other examples are listed in Table 10.2, including the recovery of ink in paper recycling (which is discussed in Section 12.5.2), the recovery of bitumen from oil sands (which is discussed further in Section 11.3.2), and the removal of particulates and bacteria in water and wastewater treatment (which is discussed further in Section 9.4). 

Roasting furnaces are used to react sulfides to produce metal oxides, which can be converted to metals in the next process step. The sulfides are used as a reducing agent in nonferrous metallurgy for the recovery of metals. The process has been used for metals such as copper, lead, zinc, nickel, magnesium, tin, antimony, and titanium. 

A U.S. Bureau of Mines survey covering 202 froth flotation plants in the United States showed that 198 million tons of material were treated by flotation in 1960 to recover 20 million tons of concentrates which contained approximately 1 billion in recoverable products. Most of the world s copper, lead, zinc, molybdenum, and nickel are produced from ores that are concentrated first by flotation. In addition, flotation is commonly used for the recovery of fine coal and for the concentration of a wide range of mineral commodities including fluorspar, barite, glass sand, iron oxide, pyrite, manganese ore, clay, feldspar, mica, sponumene, bastnaesite, calcite, garnet, kyanite, and talc. 

The ionic liquid ChCl with urea was applied to the processing of electric arc furnace (EAF) dust by Abbott and coworkers [18]. It was found that the solubility of ZnO, Cu O, and PbO was good, zinc and lead can be selectively removed and subsequently electrowon from the liquid, whereas the insoluble iron and aluminosilicates can be recycled through the electric arc furnace. The process developed for treating EAF dust involves extraction of lead and zinc from matrix, isolation of lead, and recovery of zinc. The pilot plant built for 5-kg dust extraction batches is given in Fig. 5.1 [19]. 

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